Readers Write: Kimberly Potter sentence, officers’ duty to intervene, invalid baptisms

Judge Regina Chu, in sentencing Kimberly Potter, cited the factors favoring lenience (“2-year sentence,” front page, Feb. 19). Potter made a mistake — even the prosecution granted that — which she won’t make again. And with that flourish of fairness, Chu was consigned to the fury of the streets and the furor of the media.

Because they don’t want protection. They don’t want rehabilitation. They don’t want mercy. They don’t want pearls of judicial propriety.

They want punishment: ever-tougher charges. They want suffering: ever-longer sentences. They want to inflict the pain that they feel.

Yet it seems like only yesterday that the left opposed all of the things that they demand today. They opposed punishment for punishment’s sake. They insisted that it was always wrong to make anyone suffer. They contended that pain served no remedial or deterrent purpose and so had no place in the correctional system. Incarceration was strictly for reform. Even now they lobby against solitary confinement on those grounds — while they eagerly turn the screws of punishment on convicted police officers.

Color conquered conscience; the past pillaged the present. The universal ideals of the left have been reduced to racial asterisks; reserved to this group and denied to that group. So equality becomes a contradiction, extolled to the degree that it is betrayed. And justice aims to glut the grudge, not to serve the truth. Punishment is cool.

My heart goes out to you, Judge Chu. It is impossible to render justice for people who cherish revenge.

Charles Jolliffe, Edina

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Judge Chu fell far short of justice when she tearfully sentenced Potter to a mere two years after she shot to death a young Black man after pulling him over for a traffic transgression, reasoning that Potter’s crime was entirely accidental. Judge Chu ignored the dormant racism that lurks so menacingly below the surface of both our systems of law enforcement and our ultimate exercise of justice, in which she modeled us at our most oblivious. At the very least she could have added five years of community service to Potter’s term — five years wherein she would be compelled to research and teach to the community about how the law is applied unfairly between Black and white people. If this is not her own bias, or trusting that she could grow beyond it as she herself learned, Potter could be compelled to spend those five years teaching the decency of impartiality to fellow officers, insisting they recognize the nuances of their unawareness and how they engage in the outright practice of unfairness, and how the application of law is often downright indecent. In doing this, perhaps Potter could offer future hope to those subject to the authority of civil and criminal justice in our country.

Shawn O’Rourke Gilbert, Edina

•••

I have mixed feelings about the light sentence imposed on Potter but one statement by Daunte Wright’s family caught my eye. They complained about the judge’s reaction to the victim impact statement in imposing her sentence. I say, good for the judge.

Impact statements are fine as an outlet for families to vent and gain some closure, but do we really want sentences to be determined by which family cries the loudest?

We have striven to eliminate racism and sexism from our courtroom, but in some cases it seems to be replaced by “lovableism.” We cannot stand equal before the law if our fate is decided not by the impact on the victim, but by the histrionics of his family, no matter how sincere their grief.

Edward Stegman, Hastings

•••

There are mistakes in life that are unforgivable — mistakes that live with you, torture you each and every day of your life. Former Officer Potter made such a mistake the second she mistakenly used her gun instead of her Taser. Her sentence of two years is nothing compared with her mental sentence of life without the possibility of forgiveness.

Dennis Daniels, Eden Prairie

•••

Having watched the wrenching decision handed down by the court concerning Potter, I asked myself if I would feel differently if Potter were Black and Wright were white, if both Potter and Wright were white or both were Black. As citizens and human beings, I hope we can carefully and prayerfully ponder this question in any race-related issue.

Mary Ritten, Minneapolis

DUTY TO INTERVENE

A recent letter writer is asking for specifics on how police officers should intervene if necessary (“Give us some specifics,” Readers Write, Feb. 18). His questions regarding George Floyd’s death — “[O]n what other job site or at what place of employment is it even remotely a reality that a guy in his first week on the job overrules or takes command from a senior 19-year veteran? What form would that take?” — are easy to answer.

I have two that came to mind quickly:

1) Airline pilot. Even though the captain holds the final authority and responsibility for the safety of the flight, a brand-new first officer is expected and required to alert the captain of unsafe situations or deviations from policy. A call from a “first week on the job” co-pilot to “Go around!” must be honored by the captain without hesitation. This overriding arrangement is taught to us as we start with our airline and as a refresher when upgrading to captain. It is also a part of semiannual recurrent training under the title “Threat & Error Management.” Because of this, airline travel in the U.S. is the safest mode of transportation available.

2) Military officers. Officers are required to disobey any order that is unlawful. A command to “burn that building” or “bomb that target” must be refused if innocent noncombatants would be killed or injured. That requirement was taught to me when I was qualifying as a fighter pilot in the Marine Corps and remains today. The obligation to “obey all orders” is a part of the oath taken by enlisted members of our Armed Forces but deliberately omitted from the oath taken by commissioned officers.

To be clear, in neither case does a newly trained individual take command. They are merely intervening in the face of a dangerous or possibly unlawful situation. Also, challenges to authority are subject to investigation, but as my training and experience has proved, it’s part of the job, and everyone understands it.

Mark Innerbichler, Brooklyn Park

The writer is a retired airline pilot.

RELIGION

I read with sadness the article in Wednesday’s newspaper about the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix invalidating the baptisms performed by a priest for decades (“Priest’s baptisms ruled invalid,” Feb. 16). According to the diocese’s own website, an individual who was baptized by this priest has not only had an invalid baptism, but also subsequent invalid confirmation, marriage and holy orders if done since — simply because the priest used the word “we” instead of “I” in performing the ceremony.

I cannot imagine the pain this is causing for those individuals. Furthermore, I think this teaching may be theologically incorrect and be the teaching of radical traditionalists who have many followers in the Catholic Church. In my Catholic religious education, we were taught that martyrdom and baptism of desire were valid forms of baptism. Simply if a person wanted baptism and followed the precepts of good charitable works and other teachings of the Catholic Church, this was a valid form of baptism. Certainly this would apply in this case.

Also, it seems to me that Christ talked often about following the spirit of the law (of the religious teachings of Judaic people of that time) rather than the letter of the law which many of the religious leaders (the Pharisees) demanded of their people and whom Christ disagreed with strongly. This action taken by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church shows how much it has diverged from the teachings of its founder.

And church leaders are often puzzled as to why people are leaving organized religion.

Margaret A. Wood, Bloomington

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